


dust off your highest hopes

by crystallized



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everybody Lives, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-20 23:03:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1528976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystallized/pseuds/crystallized
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bobby shows up the next morning, pounding on their door with answers to the case, and when Dean answers in just a pair of jeans and Bobby looks around him to see Sam and Cas still laying in the bed, Bobby's reaction is pretty much exactly the same as it was with just the brothers all those weeks ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dust off your highest hopes

It starts like this:

One day, Sam is just sick of it. Dean almost died again and Sam spent the whole damn night feeling like his heart was in his throat and he just can't take this bullshit anymore. So when it's all over and they're supposed to stand on opposite sides of the Impala and Sam's supposed to berate Dean and Dean's supposed to ignore Sam, he just snaps. He goes to Dean's side, and crushes his mouth against his brother's. 

They don't talk about it, but at the next motel, Dean gets them a king sized bed instead of two doubles, and they never go back. The first time Bobby shows up in their motel room during a case, he merely raises his eyebrows at them. Dean looks sheepish, but Bobby shakes his head with a wry half-smile. "Like I'm one to judge," he says, and then life goes on as normal. Normal, in this case, is the way Dean breathes into the back of Sam's neck at night, lips to skin, neck, ears, stubble. Normal is the way they touch now more than ever, their legs touching underneath the diner table or hands just kind of magically holding the other when walking into danger. Normal is the way they kiss like they won't make it out, and kiss like they're stunned they did.

Normal is more rest, too, because normal isn't getting back into the car after almost dying. Normal is going back to the motel and fucking like it might be their last time, every time, the heat of skin and fear and adrenaline coursing through their veins until they cry each other's names into the night, love and pain and sex and tears and heartache and "don't you ever fucking leave me, Dean" and "I can't do this without you, Sammy" and maybe if they sleep a little more and act a little less expendable, maybe it's a good thing.

It changes like this:

The first time Dean calls Cas to them in the new motel situation, the angel doesn't even seem to notice. Neither of them expected him to, really. It's not that they think he'll disapprove - "You saw him kiss a demon, Sammy; he can't judge either" - but it just doesn't seem like a thing he needs to know. Sam isn't blind to the way Dean looks at the angel, though, and isn't jealous so much as worried. Dean was never called an abomination by an angel, after all.

The day Cas pushes Sam against the wall and growls his anger at Sam's risk-taking into his mouth, Dean gets the cockiest fucking grin on his face and Sam's pretty sure that grin hangs around for weeks. It hangs around until Cas does exactly the same thing to Dean the next time he appears, and then looks at them with that look of his, the one that says 'you ridiculous humans' and Sam drags his brother and the angel into bed for the first time. 

Bobby shows up the next morning, pounding on their door with answers to the case, and when Dean answers in just a pair of jeans and Bobby looks around him to see Sam and Cas still laying in the bed, Bobby's reaction is pretty much exactly the same as it was with just the brothers all those weeks ago. "Put some damn clothes on. I'll be back in twenty with coffee," he barks, and then pushes Dean back in and closes the door himself. Forty minutes later, the brothers and the angel are sitting on the bed when Bobby knocks again.

It continues like this:

Things still go wrong all the time. Not even Cas is enough to protect Sam and Dean from their own stupidity, from their own issues and anger and the things the brothers have to learn. But he responds to Sam's prayers as much as Dean's, and comes home as often as he can, comes hunting as often as he's able. Cas meets Garth, and Charlie, and Kevin, and learns what it means to be human even without actually experiencing it. Cas learns that the ability for love was one of the things his father loved most about humans, and finally understands why when they're all sitting in the bunker throwing popcorn at each other, the extended edition of The Fellowship of the Ring playing on the television. Sometimes Crowley comes by - sometimes to try to get their cooperation on one evil plan or another, but other times he and Bobby just sit in the kitchen, drinking scotch and commiserating over the idiots they have to worry about. There's a lot in common between ruling a revised Hell and coordinating a network of people who all hate each other, apparently.

There's that, too. The hunter network they run from the bunker - they being Bobby with help from Garth and Sam, really. Bobby already ran a hunter network, but the resources of the bunker just make it easier. Sam took everything he could find out of the Campbell compound ages ago, but moving it into the Men of Letters bunker just feels right.

"Well, you are the scion of Winchester and Campbell," Cas comments, "Of course it's fitting to combine their resources for your benefit." They never talk about the time Sam spent in the compound before the rest of the living Campbells died. It's not relevant, and somewhere along the line all three of them learned that sometimes it's okay to let the past be the past. So they use everything Winchester and Campbell alike have to offer the last of their lines, and things tend to work out.

When things don't work out, when Dean and Cas come home from a hunt worn and bloody, Sam glances over to Bobby or Garth and while very occasionally they shake their head and Sam finishes what he's working on and cleans up his research, they usually nod and Sam catches up with his lovers before they even reach the bedroom. In the shower Dean remodeled for the three of them, they touch each other under the spray of heat, water washing off the blood and guilt in a way mojo never could. It took a while to teach Cas that one, too, but he got there and now Cas enjoys the redemptive shower almost as much as Dean. 

Sam nips at Cas's shoulders with his teeth while the angel washes the grime from Dean's hair, and though Sam may not be covered in the same physical or emotional dirt, Dean takes his time on his younger brother's body, looking at Sam with the same amazed eyes from the days when Dean couldn't believe his brother was willingly riding and hunting alongside him. Sam laughs, but he feels the same amazement at the angel who once equated him with a demon sharing their intimacy and Cas, well, angels were never meant to feel the way he feels for the Winchester brothers, and Cas whispers his regret for the loss of Gabriel and Balthazar, the only ones of his brothers he thinks would have understood. 

"You're not alone, Cas. You have us," Sam murmurs back, lips on Cas's wet skin, and Dean runs his fingertips down his angel's arms, holding his wrists and meeting the angel's lips in a kiss both loving and fiercely protective.

Once they all feel clean, of the grime if not the pain, Cas does use his mojo to dry them off - "No sense getting everything soaked," he once said dryly, and the boys agreed wholeheartedly - and they fall into Dean's memory foam mattress, the first luxury other than the love of Cas and his brother that the man has ever allowed himself. Their lovemaking is always gentle on the nights after a hunt. On the good days, they allow themselves to experiment, with bindings and pain and harsh words, but after the stress of the hunt and in the exhaustion of cleaning it off, Dean's fingernails on Sam's back or Cas's teeth on Dean's neck are the most they can handle.

These days, with his mindset more human than angel, Cas wonders how he doesn't feel overwhelmed by the two bigger men holding him between them on the bed. He says as much, and both of the brothers laugh, leaning in to kiss each other over Cas's shoulder. "Because this puppy couldn't hurt a fly anymore, much less an angel," Dean responds with a grin and a light shove to Sam's shoulder, and is granted a classic Sam Winchester bitchface in return. "Because we love you," Sam says into the quiet that falls over them after, and Cas nods, tipping his head up to run his tongue up Sam's neck to meet the the man in a soft kiss. Dean makes a pleased noise behind them which turns into a happy sigh when Sam wraps his arms around angel and brother alike, and they're all three of them gone, lost in the pleasure and sensation of each other.

They stumble into the kitchen the morning after as if hungover to find three cups of coffee and a grinning Charlie, pots and pans strewn about and a light dusting of flour covering the countertops. "Dean!" she cries, "Help me!" He does, of course, and Cas and Sam sit at the table while Dean and Charlie rescue breakfast. Eventually the rest of the bunker joins them, and when they look around at their new family, the men and angel who were once the lonely Team Free Will - humanity's only defense against the darkness - smile. When Crowley appears in a poof of darkness, Kevin just rolls his eyes and hands the demon a plate of breakfast, extra bacon, just the way the King of Hell likes it. It's kind of a messed up family, but it's more than any of them ever dreamed, and if Dean closes his eyes for a second and squeezes Sam's hand, silently praying to the angel of Thursday for his family's continued happiness, well, Castiel just grins back at the hunter and life, as it often does, goes on as normal.


End file.
